Our Arts research

The Digital and Material Artistic Research Centre (DMARC) is the academic research centre for our School of Arts. Our focus for DMARC is to increase understanding of the shifting boundaries and new relationships within artistic research practice and theory.

About DMARC

DMARC is the home to artistic research from the disciplines of Performing Arts, Music, Media, Art and Design within the School of Arts. Among other forms, our researchers explore the potential of hybrid art forms made possible by using digitalisation alongside the traditional arts, collaboration and working across disciplines. We share our research through our practice, exhibitions and published text.

An exhibition of the artistic research of our academics celebrates the uniqueness of artistic research and its possibilities. Books, films, objects, drawings and prints are among the creative artefacts included to show the diversity of artistic delivery that is possible. Our Arts Research Exhibition 2018 runs until the end of December at our Markeaton Street site in Derby.

Our research groups

Our DMARC research is based around five groups:

Commercial Cultures - we aim to produce meaningful outcomes by changing the ways we view and create commercial work

Lovability - we will explore disability and inclusiveness in a project that will include two feature-length films, articles and exhibitions

Material Worlds and Haptic Humans – we look at our relation to spaces and things through the senses of touch and vision

Women Artists in History – we focus on the issues of research, curating and exhibiting women’s art in history

Future Music, Soundscapes and Auditory Perception – an art-meets-science grouping that focuses on sound as a fundamental raw ingredient in human experience

Your PhD - study with us

We welcome applications for PhD artistic research study in practice and theory. We can offer you an intellectually stimulating environment through the subject clusters of Media, Performing Arts, Art and Design. Our PhD programme gives you a freedom to pursue new and innovative ideas within and beyond these areas, guided by experienced and leading academics in the field and sector.

Interdisciplinary and cross-school research projects are considered, such as those that straddle Arts and Health and Arts and Humanities. We are open to discussing proposals that stimulate and engage through creative exploration and invite you to enquire about ways we can support your PhD study.

If you would like to discuss your project proposal with us, then please contact Dr Angela Bartram, Head of Arts Research and DMARC, at a.bartram@derby.ac.uk and Dr Robert Burstow, Post-Graduate Research Lead for the School of Arts, at r.burstow@derby.ac.uk.

FORMAT International Photography Festival

FORMAT is the UK’s leading biennial festival of contemporary photography and is organised in Derby by QUAD and our Digital and Material Artistic Research Centre (DMARC).